Imagine how difficult it would be to send your 16 year old, out into the world on their own, without any life skills, no family around and no basically no idea how to cope with life on their own. Then imagine trying to parent from over 6000+ miles away and with a huge language barrier. This is what we've had to watch Z go thru these past couple of months. I can see his daily struggles, without him telling me what's going on. Each picture he posts or sends, I can see it in his face. It breaks my heart. This past week has been especially hard. Z seems a bit depressed and I don't know how to help him. He will go for several days, without answering my messages. He hangs up on me when I call. When he finally does answer a message, it's with a one word answer. I want to hop on a plane and go to Ukraine and fix things. I hate seeing our Son like this. I hate the fact that he's alone in his world. Last night, after some rough days, he finally sent me a couple of messages. "Mom, I really slept good for 2 hours last night." Z is scared and doesn't feel safe in his hostile. Imagine being excited for 2 hours of good sleep. These kids live with this every single day. Fear of being beat up. Fear of getting the little they own, stolen. Fear of going hungry. Fear of not having a family. Fear of being homeless. While we complain that the process of adoption takes forever, to these kids, it's beyond a lifetime. We can keep him informed of what's happening and we tell him how quickly the process is moving, but to Z, he's not even sure we really mean that we are coming for him. 2019 seems like forever away. These kids only live for the day that's in front of them. They don't dream. They don't understand time, like we do. They struggle just for the moment. So, when I get impatient or when I say it's only 9 months.....to them, it's light years away and we aren't moving quickly enough. It's hard. It's very very hard.
At the end of our messages last night I got the this message (https://imgur.com/oyHzWtt ). This. Is. Everything. Z will be home forever soon. This is why we keep fighting, why we keep fundraising, why we keep moving along as fast as we can. Z is our reason.